The Darling Dahlias and the Texas Star

Charlie threw out his hands. “Look, Liz, if this was anybody else but Lily Dare, I might see it differently, and I’d be the first to call in the law. But Lily—” His eyes were narrow, his voice gruff. “Do you remember what I said yesterday? She’s a schemer.”


Lizzy stared at him. “I don’t understand.” She went to the window and looked out. “Are you suggesting that she . . . she staged this? But why? What possible reason could she have?”

Charlie countered with his own question. “If you were sleeping in this room and somebody came in and pulled you out of bed and dragged you toward that window, you’d yell, wouldn’t you? Especially if you knew that there were two women in the adjacent room and another right across the hall? You’d scream at the top of your lungs, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh, definitely,” Lizzy said hotly. “I’d not only scream, I would scratch his eyes out!”

“And if you couldn’t scream—if you were gagged, say, or somebody had his hand over your mouth—you’d kick the floor. You’d make enough noise to wake the dead. Wouldn’t you?”

Lizzy nodded. “Of course I would. But maybe . . .” She thought of something she had read in one of the true crime magazines Verna was always loaning her. “Maybe the kidnapper hit her over the head and knocked her out, or used chloroform or something.”

“Maybe. But if she was unconscious, there wouldn’t have been a struggle. We wouldn’t see the furniture knocked over.” Charlie went to the window. “But more important, Liz, just how do you think a kidnapper is going to get an unconscious woman out of this window? Is he going to throw her out? Let’s reconstruct this—hypothetically, that is.”

Doubtfully, Lizzy looked out the window. It was only a ten-foot drop. “Maybe he lowered her?” she suggested. “By her arms, I mean. She’s not a very big woman. Around 120 pounds, maybe.”

“Possible, I grant you. But if she’s unconscious, she’s a dead weight. The kidnapper would have to be strong enough, which lets out quite a few candidates. Angel Flame couldn’t have done it, for instance.”

“Angel?” Lizzy asked, puzzled. “Why would she—”

But Charlie was going on with his hypothetical reconstruction. “So this muscular kidnapper has lowered an unconscious Lily to the ground. And then what? Does he drag her into a waiting vehicle which is parked out front—and which nobody heard? I don’t think so, Liz.” He paused. “And who would have done this, anyway? Not Roger, although he might be strong enough. This is his house. He’d be at the top of the suspect list. And if he were going to kidnap her, there’d be none of this window nonsense. He’d take her out the front door.”

“The same goes for Mildred,” Lizzy said thoughtfully. “She would never have wanted Miss Dare to disappear from her house. If nothing else, it’s a huge embarrassment.” She considered for a moment. “How about Rex Hart? I know that you’ve been suspicious of him.”

Charlie chuckled shortly. “Where do you think I’ve been all night? I was in the shed at the airstrip, keeping an eye on those planes—and on Hart. I wanted to make sure he didn’t have a chance to try any dirty tricks with Lily’s plane. He could have been behind the earlier sabotage, but I can swear that he didn’t leave the shed all night long. Same with the rest of the crew—the three guys who drove in yesterday afternoon in an old rattletrap truck.”

“I see,” Lizzy said.

“Right. So who are we looking for? Some mystery man—a strong guy—who has never shown his hand until now?” He shook his head. “Uh-uh, Liz. I don’t think anybody else was in this room after you left it last night. I think this is one of Lily Dare’s damned cockamamie schemes.”

“I see what you’re saying,” Lizzy said. She looked around the room. “Which means that she did all this herself. She turned the furniture over—”

“Quietly,” Charlie put in, “so you and Verna wouldn’t come running over here and stop her.”

“Turned the furniture over quietly,” Lizzy continued. “She had to get dressed, because she wouldn’t want to go wandering around Darling in her nightgown. She ripped a piece off her nightgown and snagged it on the windowsill. And tossed her mule onto the ground and then climbed out the window and down the trellis. And she took her handbag.”

“Her handbag?” Charlie asked.

“Yes.” Lizzy went to the dresser. “It was right here, Charlie. A big leather handbag. I saw her take a cigar out of it. A woman would never go anywhere without her handbag—it has her wallet in it, her identification, her money, her smokes, everything. But a kidnapper likely wouldn’t think about such a thing. He wouldn’t need it, so he wouldn’t bother with it. He’d be too busy trying to handle her.”

“Ah,” Charlie said, nodding. “Of course, Liz. You’re right. It’s something a man wouldn’t even think of.”